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Lanxon writes "Designer Dominic Wilcox has come up with a Pinocchio-style 'finger-nose stylus' that lets you use your phone hands free, reports Wired. He came up with the design after he found that he wanted to use his touchphone in the bath. A wet hand is not a good touchscreen navigation device, so he found himself using his nose to scroll, but found it hard to see precisely where his nose was touching the screen. The solution was to create a nose extension 'finger' that would allow for navigation while holding the phone firmly in his one dry hand."

I know I really do not understand the need to be using your smart phone that much. I see people sitting in hot tubes at my gym using them, and it's like do you really need to be connected so much you can't be away from your phone for 30 min?

Sadly....many of them likely were not coming to age in a non-smartphone world. If that's all they've known...etc.

I admit, I like staying connected a LOT....but I do enjoy times when I don't wanna be contacted, nor do I want to contact anyone. A nice beach in the Caribbean or Key West maybe...no need for phones or computers, just some tunes....rum punch and girls in soon to be shed bikinis.

Why is it such a big deal to you that people like to do more than one thing at a time.

Not a big deal to me, but when someone is moved to invent a device that might as well have a blinking "Douchebag" sign attached to it, one does wonder if there are alternative ways to live ones life that does not require the wearing of a ridiculous elective prostheses.

I know I really do not understand the need to be using your smart phone that much. I see people sitting in hot tubes at my gym using them, and it's like do you really need to be connected so much you can't be away from your phone for 30 min?

Keep in mind that a smartphone isn't just a phone. They may very well not be "connected" at all, just doing something else. I sometimes play games or read a book on my phone while relaxing in the hot tub or steam room, and if I'm not doing that I almost always have my headphones on listening to music or an audio book.

But I have a waterproof case for my phone (and waterproof headphones), so I don't need this nose stylus. I just use my wet finger.

"Cost saving 5 plank Fence - sensor detects position of person and moves fence accordingly...You might be asking 'why hasn't anyone thought of this before?' But the garden fence industry is very powerful and they kill any idea that would threaten their plank quantity sales."

my bet is that they would require them to pump them full of say a two part foam to keep the body from breaking down into the ground.. even now they require graves to have a concrete encasing so that the embalming fluids don't seep into the ground water.

Actually, it will also come in handy for various people with disabilities. One of our employees used to use a similar setup to use the touch-laptop attached to his motorized wheelchair. His phone was mounted to it too...

>>>society proves me wrong once again. Where there is a will, there is always more douchiness.

Reminds me of a story I just read in Asimov's Science Fiction, about a future society that shrunk phones so small, they could be embedded inside index fingers and thumbs. The idea was extremely popular for a few years, until everyone noticed how dumb they look holding their hands to the face & talking. (Like little kids do.) The fad then died off.

Simplifying his shower masturbation? Imagine the the horrible scene you couldn't un-see if you accidentally walked in on this "inventor" wearing this prosthetic nose and TCB (taking care of business)?
the horror, the horror...

I can envision the amount of mental jackassery that could have resulted in someone actually making and promoting this...thing. What I don't get is why Slashdot thinks it's worthy of any mention, notice, republication, or even ridicule.

Granted, the whole concept of using an iPhone in the bath is silly, IMHO, I could see very legitimate real-world use for this in the disabled community.

My wife is a nurse on the ventilator unit at a local rehab hospital, and she tells me often of the setups people have there to use a laptop computer with head-mounted stylus units and such that don't work very well for some patients. But I could see a solution like this working wonderfully for quadriplegic or otherwise disabled people to use an iPhone or more likely an iPad.

The teledildonic French kiss adapter, discussed yesterday, might be useful in addition. Do people with these disabilities have more precise control over their tongue or their heads? It's probably a matter of personal preference. There are also those who communicate by puffing into a device, either in morse or some other code.

Granted, the whole concept of using an iPhone in the bath is silly, IMHO, I could see very legitimate real-world use for this in the disabled community.

My wife is a nurse on the ventilator unit at a local rehab hospital, and she tells me often of the setups people have there to use a laptop computer with head-mounted stylus units and such that don't work very well for some patients. But I could see a solution like this working wonderfully for quadriplegic or otherwise disabled people to use an iPhone or more likely an iPad.

Hmm, i thought people could do bath things, in the bath. You know, like clean themselves, masturbate.

Using an iphone, ipad, computer, laptop, etc, is not okay bathtime things.

I was in the snow recently (a generally rare event for an Australian) and discovered that I couldn't use my phone when I had gloves on. Obvious in retrospect but not something I'd thought about ever, and it was a total PITA to have to take my gloves off to swipe to unlock my phone to see if I'd missed calls, SMSes, etc.

I ended up using my nose to swipe the unlock, much to the hilarity of everyone else. It looked pretty silly (so I was told) but it meant I could unlock the phone without having to take my glo

Well, that's depressing. Seriously, who would buy something like this? I use my phone (hell, even my laptop) in the tub *all the time* with no problem at all. Keep a hand dry, use your thumb. If you need both hands for whatever you're doing, keep a towel beside the tub. It's really not rocket science.

But, yeah. Laptops and phones in the tub for 6 years now, and I've never had a problem.

This was already well-researched in the HCI literature, starting with Olsen's groundbreaking paper on the DataNose around 1986, and extended significantly by Brad Meyers, et al., in their 1991 UIST paper on Nose Gesture Interfaces and Rhino-Virtual-Reality in General.

If you really want to use your iPhone/iPod touch in the bath, put it inside a zip-loc bag. Of course there is a chance of a little moisture passing through, so put the sealed bag inside another zip-loc bag. Just make sure that the labels of both bags are facing the back of your device so they don't obstruct your view.

And yes, you can still control the touch screen even through two layers of plastic and using your wet finger.

What kind of ham fisted simian is incapable of using a touch screen smart phone with one hand? I can do all the required features of my Galaxy S just fine with one hand. I can't imagine a situation where this is required unless you are just too uncoordinated to exist in modern society.

However, perhaps iOS is indeed too clunky to use with one hand. Perhaps he should just consider upgrading to a modern smartphone OS instead of sticking with a 5 year old piece of crap.